Sara, our wonderful boss-of-all-things-whales here at Greenpeace International, went onto the brand new White House website of the Obama Administration this week, and searched for "whaling" (she’s very fond of whales).

This wasn't some random behaviour – she was following up on a story that's been doing the rounds, like this example in the Washington Post: "U.S., Japan Negotiate Over Whaling Limits".

Sara's search came up with no mention of whaling - not a major surprise, as we do understand that President Obama probably didn't anticipate whaling to be a priority at this early stage of his term. Ironically though, the website came back with the answer (see screenshot) :

"Did you mean dealing?"

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Posted by Dave at 4:33 PM | Permalink

The Arctic Sunrise arrived in Belém, Brazil as part of the Save the Planet: NOW about a week ago. Our first open boat was a success despite the heavy rain during some parts of Sunday: more than 2,500 supporters visited the ship during the weekend (some waiting in line for more than 2 hours!)
Special thanks to all of the supporters that came down to the open boats and the volunteers who helped make the weekend a success!

Posted by Jess at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, President Obama granted California and 13 other states a waiver to set strict vehicle emissions standards on their own. The administration is actually going to let states move forward and pass emission standards that might be even tougher than federal standards. Finally! Something resembling sense on environmental issues is coming from the administration in my country.

Read more »

Posted by Jess at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I keep thinking Fox News can't go lower, and then they impress me with things like that (you may want to take a deep calming breath before and after watching this):

As very well said on the Grist blog: "If crime rates are rising, how come I didn't get mugged today?"
(via Grist and Media Matters)

Posted by Juliette at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What does Obama mean for activism?

Greenpeace has no permanent allies or enemies, and we don't endorse political parties or politicians. We're just as ready to praise Bush for protecting more of our planet's oceans than anyone in history as we are to condemn the Obama administration if they move ahead with plans for nuclear power.

But something needs to be said about what the election of Barack Obama means for the core of what we do: activism.

George Bush tried to shut down Greenpeace, when Attorney General Ashcroft took out the first felony prosecution against a non-governmental organisation in US history, rather than prosecuting individual activists, in response to a Greenpeace vessel blocking a shipment of illegal timber from coming into port in Miami. Bush tried to make activism synonymous with terrorism, and proposed laws which would have meant jail for many of the people who fought for civil rights, against the Vietnam war, or any of the many times in US history when people have taken to the streets in non-violent struggle.

George Bush was an enemy of activism.

Barack Obama is its product.

Read more »

Posted by Brian at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Karen Sack writes:

Washington DC, 20 January 2009; 12.48pm -- I have just witnessed, along with millions of others around the world, the swearing in of President Barack Obama of the United States of America. I was going to be on the Mall just left of the Washington Monument (had the jumbotron screen all scoped out after the concert on Sunday), and was all ready to go, when, as life would have it, my 11 year old son woke up with a horrible cold and fever. Standing in the freezing cold for 6-7 hours was just not on the cards for today, so we said farewell to the other half of the family and settled down in front of our minitron (tv).

We watched along with everyone else around the world, and tears streamed down my face at the thought of this great man, an African, just like me, taking on the mantle of one of the greatest offices in the world. Our stories are a bit different (ok, a lot different), but I like to think that somewhere there are some parallels. Obama grew up a black African in the white world of the United States. I grew up a white African in the confused and oppressed country of South Africa – what should have been a black world.

Read more »

Posted by Brian at 9:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the CNN website:

Have you got a burning question you'd like to put to a world business leader?

From January 28 to February 1 CNN will be broadcasting live and reporting online from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as the world's leading powerbrokers and moneymakers gather to discuss the state of the world in 2009.

The World Economic Forum brings together top business and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland, each year to talk about global issues and generally pall around.

I've been emailing with a guy named Tom who's collecting suggestions for what question CNN should ask world leaders there. Selected questions will get air time on CNN.

So my question to you is: "What's the number one question you'd want CNN to ask in Davos?"

Deadline is 11am (East Coast US time), January 23rd (this Friday). Post your question as a comment, or join the discussion on the Greenpeace forum.

Posted by Andrew at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Greenpeace world is full of surprises. I was looking around our national websites to see if there was anything new I had missed, and found more than I bargained for. One of my all-time favorite authors, Meg Cabot, is donating all the profits from her latest book, Ransom My Heart, to Greenpeace USA. The name Meg Cabot might not be familiar, but her most popular book series, The Princess Diaries, should be, at least if you have a daughter under 16. I'm not going to write an entire review, but let's just say that Meg Cabot's books are too often dismissed as "brainless" by people who can't seem to look further than the pink sparkling covers and the tiara overload. Her teenage books tend to feature high school girls, but the dilemmas they are faced with are generally a lot more important than make-up and dresses.

Read more »

Posted by Juliette at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By now you've heard about the uber-cool action our colleagues in the UK have undertaken to stop the third runway at Heathrow, by buying a plot of land smack where the airport authority wants to build, and offering sub-divisions to folks around the world. While legal opinions vary, it may well be that if the UK government wants to take action to seize that land, they'll need to serve every single "beneficial owner" we sign up. Which set Martin Lloyd here in the office to thinking about who we need to recruit into the plot to ensure the UK government will have a really, really hard time finding them. You know, all our ships' crew, friends on remote Pacific Islands, Antarctic overwinterers, Bex on her bicycle across Africa, those sort of folks.

What you may not have heard is the cover story that our UK colleagues used to purchase the land. As John Vidal reports in the Guardian, they claimed they needed the land to set up a (wait for it) Donkey Sanctuary.

Now yesterday I read this. I scratched my head. I pondered. I thought about it on my bicycle ride home. I knew, the way any crossword puzzle addict knows deep in their bones, that there's a joke buried in there somewhere.

But it escaped me. Nonetheless, I Twittered that I was inviting all my friends to join me in creating a new Donkey Sanctuary in the UK.

An old friend from high school, Terri Hartman, knocked me over with the *perfect* joke, leaving this comment on Facebook:

The ass you save may be your own.

DOH! That's IT!

Join the plot:

Posted by Brian at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm currently trying to put together a list of environmental blogs that we should watch for touching. The natural starting point was my blogroll, but it soon became obvious that it reflected more my personal preferences than something others could work with. I then looked a bit further, browsed newspapers websites and blogrolls here and there, asked Technorati...
I found some great stuff that I had barely looked at before, discovered a few hidden gems. However, it still feels that I may be missing something, and that the mother of all environmental blogs is still out there. I'm also short on specialist blogs, while generalist ones are a pound a penny. So I'm asking you, Greenpeacers from everywhere, what blogs do you read, before or after this one? What's your blog (don't be shy, self-promotion is authorized today)? Are you more interested in general blogs like Grist or Treehugger, or specialists, like RealClimate? Comment away!

Posted by Juliette at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Our merry band of canvassers hit the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2009 to encourage attendees to think Green when they think Gadget. We wanted to promote the new consumer guide Green Electronics -The Search Continues.

Here are the same five magic questions we asked each person:

1. What does a green electronic mean to you?
2. How much responsibility do companies have to produce green electronics?
3. How important do you think it is for companies to eliminate toxic chemicals for their electronics?
4. How far to you think you should have to travel to recycle your electronics?
5. If available, would you purchase environmentally friendly electronics?

We got lots of very interesting responses. Here are a couple of the best we thought you might like to check out.

Conversation 1 - Attendee/Smart Guy:

Conversation 2 - HP Booth Worker:

Posted by Cheryl at 12:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You'll recall that we were having trouble finding the Greener Gadgets Tech Zone after 2 days of searching. Well, our intrepid team managed to find it. Our collective reaction: "meh". Martin Hojsik, Toxics Campaigner, summed it up saying that it's small and there's little that was breakthrough technology. The team has some praise for the solar powered chargers and for the new greener TVs that use the same amount of power as a light bulb. Watch the video below with Kian and his solar powered cell phone/PDA charger for a futuristic product. We'd like to see more products that are not only green, but faster and more innovative. It was so cool that a CES attendee left his iPhone with Kian's crew to charge it while he explored the convention floor!

Posted by Cheryl at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There were over 100 journalists, bloggers and other interested parties at Greenpeace's Green Electronics - The Search Continues press conference yesterday. Press included BBC, Newsweek, Businessweek, Discovery Channel and more. Some people even came over an hour early! It was standing room only and a lot of folks told us they'd heard about the press conference over @Greenpeace_Intl's Twitter, where it was retweeted several times. Here's Casey Harrell, Toxics Campaigner for GPI and lead presenter, talking about his impressions of the press conference. Above you can find Casey's powerpoint slides.

Posted by Cheryl at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's more about our adventures from our intrepid team of canvassers here at CES 2009. Overall, the response to Greenpeace's rap about greener electronics has been well-received by conference attendees who seem electrified and glad that we're here. The BBC released an article "Tech Fair Offers Greener Vision" on Wednesday that says: "In the near future, the 'greenness' of a gadget will have a big influence on whether consumers will buy it".

Check it out our on-the-ground reports just in:

Brenna: I think our presence here at the CES is a welcome and necessary surprise. The people I have interacted with have been responsive and seemingly excited to have us here which is great! I can't wait for the press conference and the days ahead.

Lisa: I've been having mixed feelings about all of the "green" initiatives we've seen so far here in Vegas. While there's a huge amount of buzz and it's great people are paying attention to these problems, among the industry there seems to be more hype than solid action. One of our goals here that I feel we're making good headway on is helping folks separate green "fact" from "fiction". Getting people more informed about our new report will help a lot of people who want to go "green" but don't know how to cut through the spin.

Scotty: I'm having a great time on my first Greenpeace action here in Vegas! Today felt like a big success, just letting people know about our press conference and about our presence. The majority of the people seemed stoked to see us there, which was a very nice feeling! The great part about this in particular is that we can also work WITH companies, praising them when they do a good things and pushing them to make sure they follow through. Yay for good cop! Don't worry, we're having fun, too: tonight, we're going to see The Thunder from Down Under. More on that later.

Jay: Finding any signs of awareness about toxic contamination at the Las Vegas showcase of consumer electronics is like getting dealt a strait flush on the first hand – very long odds. Industry insiders representing companies of all sizes are here displaying the newest and hottest they have to offer, but the chances of finding one promoting low toxicity, take-back programs or even the energy efficiency of their products is about the same as drawing a fourth ace at the stud poker tables. Good luck. Very few of the exhibitors have made any attempts at branding that includes environmental responsibility. That is why I believe so strongly that being here with the Greenpeace toxics campaign team is essential to driving accountability in this industry. We're here to let the big boys know that we are watching their efforts closely and expect nothing less than fully meeting the commitments they've made to reducing toxicity (and the dangers and costs of recycling), energy demands during a product's lifetime and the carbon impact of making these products in the first place. Luck ain't enough here in Vegas, we need action!

Donniell: Overall, great response. Actually the best response coming from the international press eager to attend a Greenpeace press conference, let alone anything involving green electronics and/or technology. My favorite interaction was with a French man who literally stated, "but of course, I adore Greenpeace." I may have giggled and proceeded to engage with a professional Greenpeace demeanor. The day was smooth and gratifying. The result of our efforts will be realized tomorrow at 10am. Here's hoping!

Posted by Cheryl at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our team from Greenpeace have looked high and low for two days in vain to find the much-touted "Greener Gadgets Tech Zone" at CES 2009. We heard from the Discovery Channel video crew the same story - searching for an hour and a half with no luck. Above, this is a typical response from an info booth worker.

It's no dis to this young lady. She was perfectly nice if uninformed like all the other info workers. The info on the website and in the CES guide and on the maps have all been incorrect. Last night at a party, I managed to find a friend who'd actually seen the elusive zone who says it's neither in the South Hall nor the North Hall but the Central Hall. I can't even begin to explain to you how huge these "halls" are, btw.

I asked @philsfeed, ultra-cool blogger for Intel, what he thought of it. He said there's some cool stuff over there. But "it's no rainforest. It's more like one of those tiny green spaces you see between two off-ramps on the highway." I've gotten the name of someone who might be able to help. We'll keep you posted.

We're off to our big press conference to promote the new consumer survey "Green gadgets - The search continues". Wish us luck!

Posted by Cheryl at 5:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today Martin Hojsik, GPI Toxics Campaigner, and I sat in on the "Going Green: More Than a Label" which featured execs from big companies like Panasonic, Sharp and HP. A smaller, younger company was also on the panel -- Greenzer, which is a site that helps consumers find and rate green electronics. Kind of like a Green C-Net! Jeremy Arditi of Greenzer (@jarditi) gave Greenpeace's reviews of electronics a shoutout from the dais, not knowing we were there. I had a chance to interview him about how Greenzer is using Greenpeace's consumer product survey along with data from ClimateSmart, EPA and others to provide a database-backed solution to help people buy green more easily. He was pumped when I told him we'd just released the latest 2009 "Green Gadgets - The Search Continues" today!

Greenzer.com is up to 300K unique visitors a month and growing so they must be on to something. 98% of consumers (according to HP during the panel) say they want a greener TV. Do you?

Posted by Cheryl at 4:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When you're buying a new electronics products there's lots to consider, a few years ago there was practically zero information if you wanted to make an environmentally sounder choice. The huge problems caused by the dumping of old electronics in places like Ghana was only just starting to be recognised. Fast forward to 2009 and there's a plethora of competing claims made by companies and much more awareness that simply dumping your old gear is a bad idea.

Clearly there's now demand for greener gadgets, a fact confirmed by recent research from the US Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) on demand for green products. Tellingly the BBC highlights that

"More than 38% of those interviewed by the CEA said they were confused by green product claims and 58% wanted to know the specific attributes that prompted hi-tech firms to label their products green. Many, said Mr Koening, were also very sceptical about the claims many manufacturer's made for their products."

Now that's exactly were our new Greener Products Survey released today comes in. Back in March 2008 we released our first survey of the greenest electronics products on the market on the basis of toxic chemicals use, recycling and durability and energy efficiency. The first results were distinctly under whelming with most products not even getting more than 5/10.

Almost a year later here are the top products in summary:

The Lenovo L2440x wide computer monitor scored highest with 6.9/10 and is far ahead of the competition in the monitor category.

Sharp LC-52GX5 television (5.92)

Samsung F268 mobile phone (5.45)

Nokia 6210 Smart phone (5.2)

Toshiba Portege R600 Notebook 5.57

Lenovo ThinkCentre M58 Desktop (5.88)

Full Survey

Read more »

Posted by Tom at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

They want to destroy the Earth. And what better way to do that than to stealthily take out the renewable energy industry and let global warming slowly cook our planet, until it reaches temperatures better suited to their homeworld?

It's.... The Day the Mill Stood Still...

Posted by Brian at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

GP US Media Officer Daniel Kessler reports in the video above from the floor of CES 2009 – check it out. There's a lot of early buzz here at CES about green gadgets. There's even an expanded Greener Gadget Tech Zone on the exhibition floor for 2009. It seems "green is the new black" this year. Lots of people are already asking the question: how green is green? What do manufacturers mean by green? Slashdot says: Green Is In At CES, But Is It Real? CNET wonders if the 'Green' tag should be banished. We're here to ask the tough questions. It's not just about packaging – that's the tip of the iceberg. Exponentially more dangerous for our environment and ourselves are:

• Take back and recycling – how easy and global are electronic manufacturers' programs for recycling old products?

• Toxics elimination – how many gross, poisonous, nasty chemicals were used to make the product? Those toxins like mercury, phthaltates and PVCs end up in our water, our soil and in our kids' bodies. This is especially a problem in places like Ghana, Pakistan and China.

• Energy efficiency – U.S. game consoles alone use as much energy as the city of San Diego. The carbon footprint of all the electronics in the world equals that of aviation. How are companies helping to fight climate change with greener, more innovative products?

These are the questions we'll be answering over the next few days while our scrappy band is here at CES. Follow our adventures here on the blog and on twitter: @Greenpeace_Intl. Tweet us back, retweet – tell your friends and let us know what's up.

The bottom line is that clean, green technology exists. Which gadget makers are truly green and which are greenwashing – we'll find out. We're on the hunt. On Friday, we'll also be releasing the 2009 product survey "Green Electronics: the search continues", a consumer guide to the greenest, most guilt-free products out there. Learn more here. Stay tuned!

Posted by Cheryl at 2:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dang! Look at that. Never knew Jay was a energy tech geek. Like he says, "Anytime we can get free energy, I say 'why not?'" Apparently he's already got solar panels and some other wind turbines, but this ones better because it's magnetic. Eliminate the friction, all very scientific (he explains in the video).

Naturally, Jay's garage is not your average home owner's "one car plus lawnmower" setup.

Posted by Andrew at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's always a good idea to keep an eye on the blogs of your work colleagues. I should really do it more often. There's a great post on Brian's blog with his standard "new employee induction speech" (thanks for the tip Eoin!). Guess Brian was too shy to post it here himself. ;-)

Here's a little clip:

If you look back at Greenpeace campaigns to stop nuclear waste dumping in the ocean or save Antarctica from oil drilling, or stop nuclear weapons testing or save the whales — those all were impossible tasks when we took them on. And that’s part of the nature of profound change.

It looks impossible when you start, and looks inevitable after you’ve finished.

None of those things were inevitable. They happened because a bunch of crazy hippies set out to change the world, and just didn’t know any better. They didn’t listen to the voices that said you’re stupid, you’ll look silly, you’re gonna get hurt. Every one of those actions was enabled by an individual choice, and Greenpeace is an engine and amplifier of those choices.

And that’s what Greenpeace and hippies were all about: that crazy notion that every one of us individually has the power to change the world. When you think about that, it’s more than a little crazy. It’s really nuts.

And if you, dear hippies, are going to make a difference in this organization, you’re going have to embrace that madness.

Full speech on Brian's blog.

Posted by Andrew at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Several people in the Greenpeace office follow every Apple keynote like millions of other devoted Mac fans. Today a few extra of us were tuning in, expecting an annoucement that Apple had eliminated the worst toxic chemicals across their entire product range. Steve Jobs made this promise to eliminate toxic PVC and BFRs by the end of 2008 back in May 2007. In October last year he updated this and progress seemed good:

Last year we announced the unprecedented goal of eliminating polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from Apple products by the end of 2008. I’m proud to report that all of Apple’s new product designs are on track to meet our 2008 year-end goal. Steve Jobs, October 2008

However the only new product Apple announced today was a new MacBook Pro with reduced amounts of PVC and BFRs. Good, but not what Apple had promised for 2009 and no substantial further progress than MacBooks announced in October.

Maybe there's going to be a new annoucement coming from Apple soon, but so far nothing new on the Apple site. For now we are keeping the praise on hold...........

Posted by Tom at 8:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Bruce Sterling and company are doing their yearly "state of the world" ruminations over on The Well. They're covering an lot of ground (financial crisis first and all that), but this is the quote that got me...

When you can't imagine how things are going to change, that doesn't mean that nothing will change. It means that things will change in ways that are unimaginable.

One thing I get a lot is that Greenpeace should come up with answers instead of yelling about problems all the time. The truth is we're not smart enough to know all the answers. We just know they're out there. (Though we've got some ideas about solving climate change and marine reserves among other things.)

Anyway, here's the full quote from Bruce...

Last, and slowest, and worst, there's the climate. The planet's entire atmosphere is polluted. Practically everything we do in our civilization is directly predicated on setting fire to dead stuff. Climate change is a major evil. It's vast in scope and it's everywhere. The climate crisis would be a major issue even for a technically with-it bright-green secular Utopia, where every single citizen was an MIT grad. Of course our world looks nothing like that. Nor will it.

The people fighting climate change -- they look like Voltaire combatting Kings and Popes. They're still eighty percent witty comments. They have a foul, hot wind at their backs, but they don't yet have the battalions.

Communism, capitalism, socialism, whatever: we've never yet had any economic system that recognizes that we have to live on a living planet. Plankton and jungles make the air we breathe, but they have no place at our counting-house. National regulations do nothing much for that situation. New global regulations seem about as plausible as a new global religion.

None of this a counsel of despair. Seriously. We dare not despair because in any real crisis, the pessimists die fast. This is a frank recognition of the stakes. It's aimed at the adults in the room.

Let me put it this way. People don't have to solve every problem in the world in order to be happy. People will always have problems. People ARE problems. People become happy when they have something coherent to be enthusiastic about. People need to LOOK AND FEEL they're solving some of mankind's many problems. People can't stumble around in public like blacked-out alcoholics, then have some jerk like Phil Gramm tell them to buck up.

When you can't imagine how things are going to change, that doesn't mean that nothing will change. It means that things will change in ways that are unimaginable.

Discussion continues on The Well...

Posted by Andrew at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)